Gillibrand to propose tougher harassment safeguards for Hill

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Friday that she is readying a proposal to strengthen Capitol Hill's system for handling sexual harassment complaints in the wake of a growing number of reports detailing past misconduct by lawmakers and aides.

Gillibrand announced her legislation after Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), as well as former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and former Reps. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) and Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), shared their stories of past sexual harassment by male lawmakers with The Associated Press. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) last week divulged, while she unveiled plans for her own bill to overhaul the Hill's sexual misconduct policies, that as a young congressional aide she was forcibly kissed by the male chief of staff in her office.

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Like Speier's bill, Gillibrand's measure would go beyond making sexual harassment training mandatory for all members of Congress as well as their employees and would overhaul the Office of Compliance, the entity tasked with managing workplace misconduct on the Hill. Current rules require alleged victims of misconduct to go through a mandatory 30-day mediation in order to move forward with complaints, a waiting period that Gillibrand would eliminate.

“Congress should never be above the law or play by their own set of rules," Gillibrand said in a statement on her forthcoming bill. "The current process has little accountability and even less sensitivity to victims of sexual harassment."

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"We must ensure that this institution handles complaints to create an environment where staffers can come forward if something happens to them without having to fear that it will ruin their careers," added the New Yorker, who has won GOP support for her long-running efforts to reform the current system for handling military and collegiate sexual assault cases.

Gillibrand's bill also would allow congressional interns to tap into the same system for filing harassment cases as full-time employees, and require that every congressional office publicly post information about employees' rights, according to a summary released on Friday.

Republicans who hold power in the House and Senate have yet to indicate whether they would support the type of broad-based shakeup of Hill harassment policy Gillibrand and Speier have proposed.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), author of the 1995 law that created the Hill's current system for handling harassment complaints, this week asked the upper chamber's Rules Committee to immediately make harassment training mandatory for employees but did not include lawmakers in his request. The House Administration Committee is separately conducting a review of current harassment policy, with the support of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).